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- News Vet's Workshop see page 2 Opinion Pro-life versus Pro-choice see page 4 Signature Martin Luther King; what he stood for see page 6 1889 llnnwA-pgl 1989 Sports Fredrick to leave Weber seepage 10 Monday, Jan. 16, 1989 Celebrating the Weber State College Centennial Vol. 49, No. 32 Scholarship dispersal under review By Erie Presley Staff Reporter The process by which scholarships are handed out is being reviewed by an ad hoc committee for possible improvement. Jackie Cutler, who supervises the scholarship office, said that under the current system, deans and department chairs have control over who gets scholarships in their respective schools and departments. However, due to a significant number of student complaints, a committee is meeting to decide whether or not changes should be made in the system. One of the changes being discussed is to take away scholarship-granting privileges from the deans and department heads, and centralize the entire system under a single governing body. Recently, students have complained that some department heads have not published scholarship-eligibility criteria iWell enough, and that some of the requirements are too subjective. Dr. Richard Jensen, chairman of the scholarship committee, said that some students who may have been eligible to receive a scholarship, were passed over because they were not aware of the criteria. Cutler said that in one department that (see SCHOLARSHIP on page 8) 4 4 V. A- a 8 . ,. I x 1 , .. A A , - v - v. OH WHAT A FEELING ... The winners of the Buick-VVcbcr State College Automotive Contest jumped for joy when the names were announced at Thursday night's game against Idaho State in the Dee Event Center. See story on page 2. (The Signpost photo: Robert Ledbetter) Journalist gives history lesson of the "Bloods" in Nam By Ray Eldard Jr. Senior Reporter "Bloods" is a story that Wallace Terry had to wait a long time to tell. A wait that lasted seventeen years. "I thought I had a sure-fire winner when I came home from Vietnam," the prize winning journalist and best-selling author told Weber State students at last Thursday's Convocation, "but that was not the case." "I had taken an unpopular war and combined it with the most unpopular subject in America. The only thing more unpopular than Vietnam," Terry said was "black men with guns who knew how to use them." The former deputy chief of the Saigon bureau of Time magazine said it took seventeen years and 119 publishers before Random House agreed to publish his "Bloods, an Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans." The best-selling book was named one of the ten best non-fiction books of 1984 by Time magazine. "Why would I hold onto a subject for so long?" asked Terry. "I think there were three basic reasons why I would not let this go." "First, I became aware that black soldiers carried extra burdens that other soldiers did not carry." Blacks were killed at such a high rate in Vietnam that the front lines were called "Soulville," Terry said. "Blacks were accounting for up to 22 percent of American combat casualties in the first three years of the war. That's more than double the ten percent that blacks represented of our American population," said Terry. "Uncle Sam had finally become an equal opportunity employer, on the front lines of Vietnam anyway." Terry told the audience in the Austad Auditorium that blacks were also the objects of communist propaganda campaigns. Thousands of leaflets came out of Bejing and Hanoi telling black soldiers, "You should not fight against other people of color. Your war is against racism in America. Go back home." "This did not affect the combat performance of the black soldier because he wanted to survive," said Terry, "but it created a psychological burden." Not only were blacks being discriminated against by being passed over for promotions, medals and "coveted rear area assignments" more than white soldiers, but often were subjected to such overt racist acts as the waiving of the confederate flag by white soldiers after the death of Martin Luther King or the burning of crosses "which meant," said Terry, "that a black would surely die tonight." The second reason Terry gave for holding on so long to "Bloods," was the young age of American soldiers in Vietnam. "The average age of soldiers in World War II was 26," said Terry. "The average age in Vietnam was 19." Terry recounted the story of the youngest American to die in Vietnam, a 15-year-old black marine who had lied about his age in order to enlist. "He was there to get money to send home to his mother to support her and his brothers and sisters. He lasted exactly six weeks and all anyone could remember is that he liked peppermint Lifesavers and that he wrote his mother everyday. And I'm there thinking to myself 'we're killing15-year-olds to what end?'" Terry also told of crying when he saw his brother-in-law (see BLOODS on page 5)

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- News Vet's Workshop see page 2 Opinion Pro-life versus Pro-choice see page 4 Signature Martin Luther King; what he stood for see page 6 1889 llnnwA-pgl 1989 Sports Fredrick to leave Weber seepage 10 Monday, Jan. 16, 1989 Celebrating the Weber State College Centennial Vol. 49, No. 32 Scholarship dispersal under review By Erie Presley Staff Reporter The process by which scholarships are handed out is being reviewed by an ad hoc committee for possible improvement. Jackie Cutler, who supervises the scholarship office, said that under the current system, deans and department chairs have control over who gets scholarships in their respective schools and departments. However, due to a significant number of student complaints, a committee is meeting to decide whether or not changes should be made in the system. One of the changes being discussed is to take away scholarship-granting privileges from the deans and department heads, and centralize the entire system under a single governing body. Recently, students have complained that some department heads have not published scholarship-eligibility criteria iWell enough, and that some of the requirements are too subjective. Dr. Richard Jensen, chairman of the scholarship committee, said that some students who may have been eligible to receive a scholarship, were passed over because they were not aware of the criteria. Cutler said that in one department that (see SCHOLARSHIP on page 8) 4 4 V. A- a 8 . ,. I x 1 , .. A A , - v - v. OH WHAT A FEELING ... The winners of the Buick-VVcbcr State College Automotive Contest jumped for joy when the names were announced at Thursday night's game against Idaho State in the Dee Event Center. See story on page 2. (The Signpost photo: Robert Ledbetter) Journalist gives history lesson of the "Bloods" in Nam By Ray Eldard Jr. Senior Reporter "Bloods" is a story that Wallace Terry had to wait a long time to tell. A wait that lasted seventeen years. "I thought I had a sure-fire winner when I came home from Vietnam," the prize winning journalist and best-selling author told Weber State students at last Thursday's Convocation, "but that was not the case." "I had taken an unpopular war and combined it with the most unpopular subject in America. The only thing more unpopular than Vietnam," Terry said was "black men with guns who knew how to use them." The former deputy chief of the Saigon bureau of Time magazine said it took seventeen years and 119 publishers before Random House agreed to publish his "Bloods, an Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans." The best-selling book was named one of the ten best non-fiction books of 1984 by Time magazine. "Why would I hold onto a subject for so long?" asked Terry. "I think there were three basic reasons why I would not let this go." "First, I became aware that black soldiers carried extra burdens that other soldiers did not carry." Blacks were killed at such a high rate in Vietnam that the front lines were called "Soulville," Terry said. "Blacks were accounting for up to 22 percent of American combat casualties in the first three years of the war. That's more than double the ten percent that blacks represented of our American population," said Terry. "Uncle Sam had finally become an equal opportunity employer, on the front lines of Vietnam anyway." Terry told the audience in the Austad Auditorium that blacks were also the objects of communist propaganda campaigns. Thousands of leaflets came out of Bejing and Hanoi telling black soldiers, "You should not fight against other people of color. Your war is against racism in America. Go back home." "This did not affect the combat performance of the black soldier because he wanted to survive," said Terry, "but it created a psychological burden." Not only were blacks being discriminated against by being passed over for promotions, medals and "coveted rear area assignments" more than white soldiers, but often were subjected to such overt racist acts as the waiving of the confederate flag by white soldiers after the death of Martin Luther King or the burning of crosses "which meant," said Terry, "that a black would surely die tonight." The second reason Terry gave for holding on so long to "Bloods," was the young age of American soldiers in Vietnam. "The average age of soldiers in World War II was 26," said Terry. "The average age in Vietnam was 19." Terry recounted the story of the youngest American to die in Vietnam, a 15-year-old black marine who had lied about his age in order to enlist. "He was there to get money to send home to his mother to support her and his brothers and sisters. He lasted exactly six weeks and all anyone could remember is that he liked peppermint Lifesavers and that he wrote his mother everyday. And I'm there thinking to myself 'we're killing15-year-olds to what end?'" Terry also told of crying when he saw his brother-in-law (see BLOODS on page 5)